An Enthusiastic Attempt
Game has a lot of spirit and effort put into it. It had iconic walkers which wowed players back then. Long campaign which is over the top. Vastly different factions with novel mechanics. Game has soul and had that ‘it’ factor when it launched. Despite all of that, it’s deemed a failure.
A Lesson is to be learn here
Failure of a game can be attributed to many factors. The biggest one is that 2000s was the golden years of RTS games. Field progressed extremely rapidly and we got masterclass game after masterclass game. Universe At War, while competent, entertaining, novel and passionate, it still wasn’t nearly enough to compete with games coming all the time. Especially in a field where audiences are particularly nerdy, obsessive and whiny like RTS fans.
How much competition game had? YES.
| Year | Release date | Game |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | 2004-09-20 | Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War |
| 2004 | 2004-09-22 | Rome: Total War |
| 2005 | 2005-06-01 | Act of War: Direct Action |
| 2005 | 2005-10-18 | Age of Empires III |
| 2006 | 2006-02-16 | Star Wars: Empire at War |
| 2006 | 2006-02-28 | LOTR: Battle for Middle-earth II |
| 2006 | 2006-09-12 | Company of Heroes |
| 2007 | 2007-02-20 | Supreme Commander |
| 2007 | 2007-03-28 | Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars |
| 2007 | 2007-09-01 | World in Conflict |
| 2007 | 2007-12-10 | Universe at War: Earth Assault |
| 2008 | 2008-02-04 | Sins of a Solar Empire |
| 2008 | 2008-03-01 | C&C3: Kane’s Wrath |
| 2008 | 2008-10-28 | C&C: Red Alert 3 |
| 2009 | 2009-02-19 | Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II |
| 2009 | 2009-03-03 | Empire: Total War |
| 2010 | 2010-07-27 | StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty |
These are all legendary games and they all came before Universe at War. Supreme Commander and Company of Heroes had revolutionized the field with physics based mechanics and massive scales. Universe at War on the other hand played as more old school RTS with small maps, big health bars and stat sheets.
Development of this game has started in 2015, but at that time scope was way too small. The only time window when it still could had been well received is before September, 2006. Project was ill timed and every other big player had outdid their project. It wasn’t that game or developers did something badly. It was simply very poorly timed project which they needed to start years before. However, Petroglyph games was working on their own legendary game, Star Wars: Empire at War. What we got two years later was quality of that game, but almost two years later! That is massive and many people would argue that Empire at War is outright better game too!
Outside of poor timing to the market, game struggled with publisher bullshit. Games for Windows was passionately hated system which game was forced to use. That was another nail to the coffin. Add its lack of ambition (which is ironic as main antagonist of this game cannot shut up talking about it and how it’s single, greatest virtue) and you have the recipe for failure. Company then proceeded to repeat the same mistakes with their biggest second attempt – Grey Goo. A project full of great ideas, novelty. However, it plays badly as gameplay is simply not interesting to RTS players. Petroglyph is a studio who simply doesn’t get it what makes an RTS interesting to their audience. They are good at everything else, but the real meat of an RTS game. That is, its gameplay. They don’t know that players like RTS, because it makes people wonder with possibilities of what they can do. It makes them think of strategies and combinations. It makes them feel good when they have massive army. It gives them feeling of power and satisfaction from building, growing and fighting. Petroglyph games on the other hand lack that core feeling to excite its player base. Gameplay is as boring as it can get and defaults to mundane spams of uninspiring units.
What is worse, game plays really badly. Walkers, while impressive and huge, controls terribly. They won’t move well with other units and any competitive game becomes a crapshoot. Likewise, game has a lot of abilities which goes nowhere. That is to say, it’s very hard to get use out of them as it requires extensive micro with unreliable unit control. Pay off for pulling any of that is low. It’s type of game which requires an exceptional skill, long planning and to sweat a bucket in trying to pull off elaborate strategies and micro when opponent can simply camp, spam most cost effective unit and just rolfstomp you with a wall of statistics. His numbers are bigger than yours and thus he will win. It’s very hard to beat natural power of concentrated units and concentrated firepower which default state of an RTS games have.
Did I had a good time?
Yes and no. Game has aged terribly. I can see why I just stopped playing it all the way back then. Campaign tries to be epic, but underdelivers. Units are ultimately boring outside of WoW factor. Game has nice visuals of harvesting, giant mechs. However, there isn’t any substance which would keep RTS player engaged. Even story, campaign is kinda lackluster and only ramps up, becomes better with time. Combine it with poor unit control and you get natural resistance which makes people to bounce off this game.
I did liked however passion which team had. Story has everything going for a much better story. Betrayal, grand invasion, ancient aliens, intrigue, depth, inner conflict. However, it’s all done in such an amateurish way. Everyone talks twice as fast as they should (which some games like Far Cry 2 had also for some bizarre reason). Plot points develop, mature and drop off as quickly as they appear on a screen. Game just goes through epic story in a span of few hours. It’s endearing to watch someone try and have interesting ideas and all the quality ingredients for something great. You can see potential of how this could had been so much better if actually competent cook had time and authority to make a decent meal out of it all. Games like these are interesting case studies. You don’t notice how old, legendary games do everything right until you see examples of games who do not.
Final Word
I’m happy that I went back, played it again and this time, properly finished the game. However, I do see that I had dropped this game back then for a good reason. Playing it, I only thought: ‘how bad gaming was back then’ as I felt like a kid. Using old computer, desperately trying to have fun, to somehow kill time. My imagination would do heavy lifting for games and hardware we had at the time. It made me appreciate how good generation Z/A has with their highly polished phone games. I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone who do not have fond memories to come back to. Game is nostalgia generating machine, it had giant mechs, dynamic map harvesting from massive alien invaders, underdog humans trying to survive, impressive cinematics. It all leaves a fond memory in impressionable kids. In the end, there is a good reason why this game has flopped the way it did.